Countless Joyful Dawns - Chapter ?? - 17: Hiring Fair III (Patreon)

We continued hiring.

We hired security, because any operation of the size I was aiming for would have problems, especially in impoverished areas. We hired People People, or Human Resources as it was called here. We hired out of work lawyers, to help us navigate the legal system. We hired IT, which was such a weird brand of oddness. I wasn’t going to pretend I understood any of it, besides ‘it was needed’, and I didn’t feel the need to learn about it. Not until it looked like I was here for a long, long time. 

We hired workers. The men and women that would be performing the labor. The operations, that everyone else was supporting. Apparently, my Pallos logic on support to operations ratio was way off. Looping back to IT, they could apparently perform miracles of efficiency, or help others perform miracles. At the same time, it felt like the miracle of inefficiency, with tens of thousands of rules and regulations to follow. 

Win some, lose some.

I started to train a few people on how to process job applications. What we were looking for, how to categorize, and most importantly, what sort of initiative I was looking for. I didn’t know far too much, and the people who lived and breathed this stuff did. I did have to be careful. I was setting the tone at the top, the ideas and philosophy that would trickle down the organization. Bad ideas, bad metrics, bad culture? The entire thing would rot faster than a barrel of apples with one rotten one.

The entire thing was exhausting. I had put on my best social face. I didn’t have anyone to lean on. No Iona, no Auri, no other Rangers or Sentinels to help me out. I was alone, deep in hostile territory, in a world that used words as weapons far more often than swords. Game face on, happy personality on, but by Ciriel, it was exhausting doing it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I needed to get everything up and running so I could become a recluse and work on getting back home.

Ethics, ugh. This is why I tried to hand off management to other people, and I’d do so again the moment I could trust them. Still, this was better than simply making my Immortality-granting cash rain down from the sky. Tried that once, it just led to soaring crime rates and hyper inflation, instead of any workable benefits. Almost got dinged by my [Oath] for that little adventure. I’d become the bored Immortal trying various large-scale experiments to ‘fix’ things… yeah, that hadn’t been a pleasant look in the mirror. 

Hence, all the Ciriel-cursed hard work to do things properly. 

The next interesting thing was another superhero crashing my hiring fair. Namely, Glory Girl, who didn’t wear a mask and thus utterly foiled my anti-mask field. She flew at high speed past the waiting line, coming to a stop right in front of me.

Or, in other words, gave me an absolute eternity to make various plans. I wasn’t good at this social stuff, but I could put in maximum effort and get some results.

“Vi-” She started to shout, pointing at me. I cut her off with a pre-planned response.

“I’m sorry, there’s a line. It’s extremely rude to cut in line like this. Please go to the back, and we’ll get to you when it’s your turn.” I said. I was surprised, stunned, flabbergasted, and all those other good words that she actually shut up while I was talking.

I mean, I had one hell of a mean command presence when I wanted to, and I was using it as hard as I could, but it never tended to work particularly well on bull-headed teenagers. Everyone else, yes, I could intimidate - especially if they knew who I was - but teenagers? More arrogance than the gods, and all the sense the lemmings got. Frankly, it was a miracle that any of us reached adulthood.

Like, I was charging dinosaurs that had hundreds of levels on me at 14. I willingly entered a besieged, plague-infested city just a few months later. I had been a dumbass, and I wasn’t sure how the fuck I had survived all that. 

Glory Girl did a mild fish impression. Some of the people in line left, others pulled out their phones. A man tensed up, then deliberately relaxed. I pegged him as wanting to sign up for security. Lisa pulled out popcorn, and looked like her birthday had come early. 

“No! You’re a villain, and you’re under arrest!”

I arched an eyebrow at her.

“I mean, yes, I work for the government, but isn’t calling me a villain a little harsh? I get that you decided to be a mercenary, but that doesn’t give you a moral high ground compared to good, honest work.”

“We’re not mercenaries!” Glory Girl protested. “New Wave are heroes!”

I started to tick points off my finger.

“Your trade is in violence. You’re not a government organization. You take payment for your work. How is that not a mercenary?”

“We don’t get paid!” Victoria continued to protest, completely missing that I had turned the conversation around on her. 

“You take donations, no?” I said.

“Well, yes, but that’s completely different from getting paid!”

I shook my head.

“Absolutely not. I could set up a donation box for my healing. I’d have millions before the day was over. I’ve done it before. Saying ‘you can donate!’ instead of directly taking payments might make you feel better, but practically speaking, it’s the same thing. Sure, you’re a little more free to make your own decisions, as opposed to having an employer dictate, but you’re just as chained to the whims of the public. It’s like tipping at a restaurant.”

To her credit, she was looking a little thoughtful.

“Donations did go up once Ames started working as Panacea.” She said.

“Exactly! Healer protection detail. Boring work at times, but great! She’s actually helping and building things, like I’m trying to build something here. When was the last time you built anything, instead of trying to tear people down?” I said.

Ah, I’d gotten her mad again.

“Either way, you’re under arrest!” She said.

“Under whose authority?” I shot back, completely unsure on the legal footing here. Plus, you know, the whole ignoring the local authority thing. “You’re not a government agent, are you even empowered to make arrests?”

Glory Girl paused, scrunched up her eyebrows, then frowned at me.

“Enough!” She shouted, and zipped right at me, flying through the air with her arms stretched out.

“Ole.” I deadpanned, as I opened up the portal to [Manor] in front of me. Glory Girl tried to stop, but I’d opened it right in front of her, and I slammed the door shut.

A surprising number of people made upset noises about it. Huh, I guess she was locally popular. I stood up.

“Don’t worry everyone!” I called out, in my best ‘cheerful but carrying’ voice. “She’s just in time out. I’ll drop her off at home before bedtime. Again.”

The only people that didn’t laugh had been rooting for me, or just hated the poor girl. Either way, the entire situation was diffused well enough for my liking. Several people that had been filming were furiously tapping away on their phones, probably letting all their friends know what they’d just seen. I think.

Reading computer screens with [The World Around Me] was hard. 

“Next!” I called out, just to get the line moving. The man with the boyish grin detoured when he got to the front of the line, and offered me his hand. I took it.

“Ethan!” He said. “I’m so glad to meet you! Big, big fan of what you did with the Birdcage, that place is a stain on society.”

Lisa suddenly lit up, and bounced over. She hovered next to us, clearly waiting for a place to insert herself into the conversation.

“Elaine! Yeah, I heard about it, and I felt I had to do something about it. Glad that my skillset let me help with the problem.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Ethan, would you happen to know who The Numberman is?” Lisa asked.

“Well, sure. Parahuman banker, discreet, reliable, never screwed - wait, hang on, how do you know who The Numberman is?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at Lisa. She put on her best smile and fluttered her eyelashes, trying to give him the old puppy dog eyes.

“I’m clearly missing something.” I said, looking between the two of them.

“You are, I’ll explain somewhere when it’s not so crowded. If you don’t mind?” Lisa asked Ethan.

“Well, it was the risk of coming here like this.” He said.

So, so very lost. It was a good reminder to myself to not be arrogant. People were smart, people were clever. People, mortals, could pull one on me right in front of my face. I wasn’t mad or anything, just checking my hubris. I fell into the trap of being too arrogant far too often, and needed to remind myself to be humble.

“Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s the logic of letting the Nazis go free, but keep Director Piggot and Armsmaster captive?” He asked. “As far as I know, they’re all accused of equally henious crimes, but one’s walking free and the other’s imprisoned.”

I opened my mouth to give the ‘warcrimes must be tried’ speech, and closed it.

Wait.

He was right. He knew way too much, but he was right. Everyone was on the same tier of crimes, but I’d only exiled the fascists while trying to bring Emily and Colin back for trial. In the interest of justice, I should exile them as well.

“Okay!” I said.

“Okay?” He and Lisa both echoed at the same time, with equal amounts of disbelief.

“Okay! I’ll exile them, same as the facists. Now, the Australian Outback, Sahara, or a deserted island, hmmm, choices, choices…” I mused out loud. 

Naturally, I lied as easily as I breathed. I wasn’t going to kick them out in any of those spots. 

“Really?” Lisa asked. Ethan rubbed his eyes and muttered something about ‘Monkey’s paw’.

“Yup! You all are doing excellent work. The real test now is if I can leave for a few hours, and everything doesn’t break. Cheers, good luck!” I said.

“Wait!” One of my new employees said. “I’ve got a few questions real fast.”

My dramatic exit was ruined by the mundanity of training and paperwork. Ethan stood off to the side, incredibly entertained by the whole thing for some reason. Finally, at last, I was able to take off, streaking east over the Atlantic Ocean. At which point, I went invisible. Because otherwise Dragon would be tracking me, and know exactly where I was exiling her boyfriend to. 8 to 12 hours later, he’d get picked up, returned to Brockton Bay, and then I’d need to take some more extreme measures. 

Eventually, I was flying over the dense forests of the Amazon. And flying. And flying. And flying.

It strongly reminded me of flying over the ocean. Just endless miles and miles and miles of the same thing. Eventually, I figured it was ‘good enough’, and teleported into my [Manor].

“YOU!” Victoria tried to punch me. Oh right, I’d left her in here. Whoops. Awkward.

I bent over backwards, making my spine and legs do things that would’ve been impossible with my biomancy changes and far too many points in dexterity, dodging her telegraphed blow.

“Me!” I cheerfully told her. “Sorry for the wait, I’ve promised that I’d get you home to your mother before curfew.

She crashed right through a wall, and I winced. That was going to be a pain in the ass to clean up, and I had no illusions about her helping.

“Is this how you treat other people’s homes?” I asked her with my hands on my hips, as she extracted herself from the wreckage she created. “Honestly, I’d expect a ‘hero’ to have better manners than that. I was right to call you a mercenary. Humph.”

I wasn’t sure if it was my words, or the slightly uptilted nose that pissed her off more. Either way, it took about 15 minutes before she was in a slightly more reasonable frame of mind.

“Let me out!” She shouted.

“I can, but-”

“No buts! No excuses! Let me out!” She shouted again.

I shrugged.

“Well, just make sure you make your way back before I leave.” I said.

“I’ll never come back willingly.” She spat at me.

I opened the portal out, and started counting to myself. 

“One… two… three… four… ah, there you are!” I said with a cheeky grin.

“WHERE ARE WE!?” She shouted. There was a lot of that going around.

“The Amazon rainforest!” I told her. “Did you bring your passport?”

“Why?” She asked. I wasn’t sure if this was a ‘why me, god?’ or ‘why are we here’, but I decided to answer the latter anyway.

“To exile Colin and Emily!” I told her. “Now, do you want to help, or stay out of the way?”

She gaped like a fish.

“You can’t do that!” She scolded me.

“Do what, exile them?” I asked, minorly confused.

“No! Out Armsmaster! No, wait, also the exile thing. You can’t do either of them! Shouldn’t!”

“I mean… I did, and I am.” I slowly explained. She was clearly at the age and mentality of Rules are Rules, and can’t be broken. She hadn’t yet realized a rule could be broken, if one was willing to accept the consequences. Granted, not all consequences were obvious and applied directly, some were more of a ‘social fabric gets worse’ type problem. “Now, if you’ll please wait patiently, I did promise I’d bring you home today. You’re a kid, you’re getting the kid gloves.”

Frankly, everyone was getting the kid gloves with a hefty extra layer of foam on them. 

“Hey Colin!” I said as I teleported into his workspace, flying obnoxiously. I had learned from the best, after all.

I missed Magic.

I missed all my dead friends.

Eternity was far too long at times.

“Dawn.” He grunted. “Please move, I need the tool behind you.”

I drifted away as the man tinkered to his heart’s content. I almost felt bad kicking him out.

“I’m letting you go.” I told him.

“Now?” He asked.

“Yup!” I flickered a few things around inside my house. “Emily’s free as well, bring all the stuff you want to the main hall.” My eyes drifted around the workroom, and I paused. “Except the printer. I like the printer. Leave that here, please!”

He grunted.

“My workshop has better tools anyway.” He said. “The most valuable thing here is time.”

Smart man! I almost liked him, except for the whole war crimes thing. 

It took another 20 minutes to herd the two of them out. First Emily was a grump - I pointed out that after my healing, her kidneys were fine and she didn’t need dialysis anymore - then they bumped into Glory Girl, discovered ahead of time they were in the Amazon - a shame, I was looking forward to the look on their face - then they tried to argue about it.

“You can not simply kick us out in the middle of the Amazon!” Emily was going an alarming shade of red.

“Yes, I can?” I said. “I mean, if you’d like, I can continue holding you prisoner here until I return to Exterreri, at which point I’ll put you on trial for your crimes. But someone convinced me that if exile’s good enough for fascists, it’s good enough for you. So… shoo, get out of here. Try to build a life without committing heinous crimes. Again.”

There was a lot more angry back and forth, before they eventually accepted their fate. Armsmaster tried to bring the generator and printer with him. I locked the door.

“Well, I’m going with them!” Victoria insisted. Honestly, girl, make up your mind! Are you going or staying!?

“Mother, home, promise, family?” I said, not wanting to go over all the details. Again. I swear my throat was getting sore from all this arguing, and oh, sometimes I wished they were truly hostile. Three Radiance beams and all my headaches would be gone.

Alas. Whoever killed a person killed a whole world, and bless all the gods, we didn’t live in a hyper-violent society. It came with its own share of headaches, sure, and it came along with a population of 6 billion people that didn’t keep blasting each other back to the stone age every millenia or so.

Eventually, I had to go with the expedient method of creating a shield between Victoria and the other two, opening a portal, kicking them out - they dodged the anaconda, but started walking right towards a fire ant nest - then closing it back up.

Back home I went! 

Well, at least to Brockton Bay. It was wonderful to carry my home with me.

Like a snail!